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weird]
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TITLE: Five Things That Never Happened To Shannon Rutherford
AUTHOR: Kristen Kilar <chickadee_from_3@yahoo.com>
RATING: PG-13. Angst. Language. Violence.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. They belong to JJ Abrams, Jason Katims, Douglas Adams, Mimi Leder, Rob Thomas, and Tracy Tormé. Spelling errors in this message are the product of a poor school system. Pay teachures more than athletes.
ARCHIVE: Just ask.
SUMMARY: Five AU/crossover snippets featuring Shannon.
SPOILERS: LOST: Through Abandoned possible. Very, very, not worth mentioning, vague spoilers for all other fandoms involved. Seriously, they’re not really spoilers.
PAIRINGS: Shannon/Ford Prefect. Shannon/Boone and Shannon/Sayid, more implied than anything.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I hate my muse. My beta, however, is a goddess. All hail![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nikiness! :D (#4 is entirely thanks to her. Thank her.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Shannon Rutherford never met an alien.
How are you supposed to react when your best friend in the whole world—or at least on the Island—tells you that she’s really an alien and her son is the rightful heir to the throne of a planet?
“Right,” Shannon said, cuddling Aaron to her chest. “So when he’s a king do we get any special benefits? Lifetime supply of chocolate? Great clothes? Our own palaces? Hopefully not on the beach.”
Claire looked sad and tickled Aaron to her. “He won’t ever be king,” she answered softly, seriously. “Khivar won’t let Zan’s blood on the throne again, and Max doesn’t care enough to fight for it.”
Shannon felt cold all over. She handed Aaron back to Claire and pulled Vincent over to her, instead. The dog was warm and solid and familiar and real. She focused on him while she told Claire, “You’re making this up.”
Claire didn’t answer. Aaron started to cry.
“You’re joking,” Shannon persisted.
Claire didn’t answer, but reached out and ran a hand down the back of Shannon’s favorite pink jacket. Shannon shivered and pulled away and when she looked down her jacket was a deep blue.
Shannon stared at it and then looked at Claire. “You’re really an alien?”
“An alien-human hybrid.”
“Queen of some other planet—”
“—In another life.”
“Oh.” She buried her hands in Vincent’s fur. “And you have powers.”
Claire looked distant, almost ashamed. “Some.”
“Can you use your powers to make Jack less of an ass?”
2. Shannon Rutherford never hitched a ride.
“Hello, lovely. Buy you a drink?”
Shannon looked up and blinked.
Okay, kinda cute. Not conspicuously so, though. Kinda drunk, too. But British accent, that was a plus. And he was offering to buy her a drink. That was a major plus. “Sure,” she said with her best charming smile. “A drink sounds excellent.”
He smiled widely. “Excellent,” he repeated, laughed, and sat down next to her. “Bartender, another, uh—”
“Skip and Go Naked.”
If possible, his smile widened. “Another Skip and Go Naked for the lovely lady here.”
She had to smile back at him, unnerved though she was. His smile was too broad for his face and she wondered if he was about to bite her neck. Then she had to laugh at herself. God, he was a Brit, not a vampire.
“I’m Ford Prefect, by the way,” he introduced himself. “In from England. Guildford, to be precise.”
“Shannon Rutherford.” She extended a hand and after a moment’s drunken pause, he shook it. “In from California. Los Angeles, to be precise.”
“So, Miss Rutherford, what brings you from Los Angeles to New York?”
“A dance internship, with Martha Graham.” She liked the way the words sounded on her tongue. Who cared that she had no money, no steady job, and had just been evicted from her apartment? She had an internship with the Martha Graham company. “What about you? What brings a Brit across the pond?”
The sudden seriousness on his face made her skin crawl for a second. “Research…I’m writing a book.”
The drinks blurred together and so did the time and then her watch said it was three in the morning and they were stumbling down the street together.
Shannon got down to the streetlamp before realizing Ford wasn’t with her anymore. She managed to turn around and found him standing by a store window, staring up at the sky with a pensive look.
“What are you doing?” she asked, a little putout.
“Looking for flying saucers,” Ford said solemnly.
“What kind?”
And then he seemed to break out of the trance and looked back at her. That grin flashed back on his face. “Green ones!” he whooped, and darted forward to kiss her.
Two years later Shannon sat cross-legged on a beach and stared at the stars.
She wondered if Ford had ever found his flying saucer.
Somehow, the idea didn’t seem so weird now.
3. Shannon Rutherford never solved a mystery.
“Mavala Nail Polish,” a voice said, making Shannon start, almost spilling the bottle. “Mav-91000. Salerno-70. $4.50, made in Switzerland, sold in a .17 ounce bottle.”
Shannon regarded the man suspiciously. “You know a lot about nail polish.”
He offered an apologetic smile. “Sorry. People tell me I tend to sound like an encyclopedia when I’m nervous.”
“Oh.”
“Why are you painting your nails the night after a plane crash?”
Coming so close on the heels of Boone’s snarking, she considered throwing the bottle at him. But she didn’t really want to waste a $4.50 bottle of Salerno.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he added, sitting down next to her. “I’m just trying to take my mind off of what happened.”
“Mmf.”
“John Doe,” he said, and reached out to shake her hand.
She held up the nail polish brush in response, and he backed off a bit.
“Shannon Rutherford,” she mumbled, and focused on touching up her left pinky toe. “What the hell kind of name is John Doe?”
“…It’s a long story.” He paused. “Of the Rutherford-Carlyles? Carlyle Weddings?”
She scowled. “My stepmother’s business.”
“Touchy subject?”
“I’d rather not talk about it. Is John Doe an alias?”
Another pause. “Not exactly.”
“What were you doing in Australia?”
“My assistant decided I needed a vacation. So she randomly bought me a plane ticket. Next thing I knew, I was in Sydney.”
Shannon snorted. “Sure.”
“You don’t believe me?” He sounded more amused than offended. He didn’t wait for an answer, but continued in exactly the same tone of voice, “We were at least a thousand miles off course when we crashed. Maybe more. The pilot had turned around. Broke airline regulations. Must’ve been something really weird going on. We probably lost radio contact. Turning around was the worst thing he could do. Any search party is going to be looking for us in all the wrong places. Without radio contact we can’t let them know where we are. If we manage to establish radio contact…” He stopped and glanced at her before continuing. “If we manage to establish radio contact, we can help them find us. But only inasmuch as we know where we are.” He started to draw in the dirt, circles and lines. “Here’s our original flight path. We were roughly here when we turned back—we could have crashed anywhere along this line. Given the weather, the vegetation, and the time of sunset, I’d place us roughly in this area.” He marked it with his finger. “But that’s still a pretty big section of ocean to search—”
Shannon had stopped looking at his diagram about two seconds after he started drawing it. She stared at him, nail polish forgotten. “Who the hell are you?”
He offered her a self-deprecating smile. “I’m the man who knows everything.” He looked away, his expression sad. “I don’t know.”
She pulled her jacket tighter around her.
“Don’t leave your nail polish open,” he said, starting to stand. “It’ll dry out. And who knows how long it’ll be before you can buy a new supply.”
Shannon didn’t move as John left, moving back away from the main bulk of survivors.
4. Shannon Rutherford never got drunk with a PI
“Look, sweetie,” Shannon said, pinning the girl down. “I don’t know what the hell business of yours you think this is, but I don’t appreciate being watched.”
“Look, sweetie,” the girl answered sweetly. “I’m just doing the job I’m paid for.”
“Who paid you?” Shannon narrowed her eyes.
She didn’t answer.
“It was Boone, wasn’t it? That asshole! I’m gonna kill him!”
“You might wanna think about killing your boyfriend, instead,” the girl said, and held up an envelope.
Shannon looked at her suspiciously, then yanked the envelope away and opened it. When she saw the pictures inside, she swore loudly, then looked back at the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Veronica Mars.”
“Veronica Mars. You drink, Veronica Mars? Because I need to get drunk.”
“So, Barbie…”
“Barbie?” Shannon echoed indignantly, and pulled the bottle away from Veronica.
“Barbie,” the other girl confirmed. “C’mon, look at you. You’re Malibu Barbie, head to toe.”
Shannon scowled. “Just because I’m tall, blonde, and pretty—”
“It’s not because you’re tall, blonde, and pretty, it’s because you’re Barbie. What’s with all the pink?”
“I like pink.”
“Well, you overdo it.” Veronica stole the bottle back and took a drink. “And your boyfriend’s an asshole.”
“I can’t believe he did that to me,” Shannon grumbled. “I’m gonna kill him, I swear…and then I’m gonna kill Boone! I can’t believe he hired a PI to follow me around!”
Veronica said nothing, but cocked an eyebrow and let her gaze drop to the pictures, her meaning conveyed in a kind of drunken sign language.
“That’s not the point. He doesn’t trust me. He thinks I’m some useless joke.” She wished she were drunker. “He thinks I’m some useless joke but he’s still in love with me. Did he tell you that?”
“Come again?” Veronica wrinkled her nose.
“He’s in love with me. It’s creepy. He’s supposed to be my brother, for God’s sake.”
“That’s…really…um, yeah, awkward.”
“Told you.” Shannon sat back and huffed a sigh. “God, I gotta get out of here. I gotta get away from him. I’m gonna leave. Where should I go?”
Veronica shrugged, then said, “I hear Australia is nice this time of year.”
5. Shannon Rutherford never slid out.
“Do you see him?” Shannon demanded, forcing herself to breathe.
Sayid looked shell-shocked but nodded.
She turned back to look at Walt again, dripping wet and incongruous with his surroundings. The small boy held up a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”
“Walt!” she called. “Walt!”
“Shhh,” he repeated, then turned and vanished into the underbrush.
“Walt!” Shannon screamed, and gave chase. Damn it, no! She was not going to lose this kid! “WALT!”
She couldn’t see him anymore, but she knew he was there, somewhere up ahead of her.
And then the jungle was illuminated with an eerie blue light.
“Shannon!” Sayid called from somewhere behind her.
She turned, trying to figure out where the light was coming from, and saw a hole in the sky.
And then she heard a gunshot.
And then she was on the ground, and there was someone on top of her.
“Remmy!” an unfamiliar female voice cried.
“…the hell just happened?” a male voice demanded, and that one was familiar. Michael?
Shannon struggled to free herself. The eerie light vanished, and then someone was pulling the guy off of her.
“What’s going on?” Sayid.
“Shannon?” Jin.
“Someone want to explain to me—?” A second unfamiliar female voice.
“Remmy, are you all right?” An unfamiliar male voice.
Shannon blinked rain out of her eyes and pulled herself laboriously to her feet.
Sayid grabbed her, checking her over for injuries. She pushed him away and looked around.
No Walt.
But Michael and Jin, standing with a group of strangers. A Hispanic woman seemed to be in the lead, a gun out and braced. There was a middle-aged man and a ragged blonde woman with them.
And then a second group of strangers. A tall African-American man, the one who’d knocked her to the ground. He was bleeding for a gunshot wound to the side. A skinny guy in his twenties. A girl about Shannon’s own age, kind of mousy. And a large, older man who reminded Shannon vaguely of Arzt.
“I’m okay, Q-Ball,” the black man (Remmy?) said, shrugging off the skinny guy. “It’s just a graze. How long do we have?”
The skinny guy checked something that looked like a fancy remote control. “Looks like this is going to be Brief Stopover World.” He flashed a grin, held the control out, and started counting. “We slide in five, four, three—”
“Walt!” Shannon screamed in surprise when she saw him suddenly, walking out between the groups as if nothing was wrong.
“—two, one!”
The eerie blue light sprang into being again.
Without thinking, Shannon dove for Walt—to catch? to hold him in place? to hug him in relief? she wasn’t sure what she intended—and fell after him, into the hole in the sky.
weird][music| ]
TITLE: Five Things That Never Happened To Shannon Rutherford
AUTHOR: Kristen Kilar <chickadee_from_3@yahoo.com>
RATING: PG-13. Angst. Language. Violence.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. They belong to JJ Abrams, Jason Katims, Douglas Adams, Mimi Leder, Rob Thomas, and Tracy Tormé. Spelling errors in this message are the product of a poor school system. Pay teachures more than athletes.
ARCHIVE: Just ask.
SUMMARY: Five AU/crossover snippets featuring Shannon.
SPOILERS: LOST: Through Abandoned possible. Very, very, not worth mentioning, vague spoilers for all other fandoms involved. Seriously, they’re not really spoilers.
PAIRINGS: Shannon/Ford Prefect. Shannon/Boone and Shannon/Sayid, more implied than anything.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I hate my muse. My beta, however, is a goddess. All hail
nikiness! :D (#4 is entirely thanks to her. Thank her.)-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Shannon Rutherford never met an alien.
How are you supposed to react when your best friend in the whole world—or at least on the Island—tells you that she’s really an alien and her son is the rightful heir to the throne of a planet?
“Right,” Shannon said, cuddling Aaron to her chest. “So when he’s a king do we get any special benefits? Lifetime supply of chocolate? Great clothes? Our own palaces? Hopefully not on the beach.”
Claire looked sad and tickled Aaron to her. “He won’t ever be king,” she answered softly, seriously. “Khivar won’t let Zan’s blood on the throne again, and Max doesn’t care enough to fight for it.”
Shannon felt cold all over. She handed Aaron back to Claire and pulled Vincent over to her, instead. The dog was warm and solid and familiar and real. She focused on him while she told Claire, “You’re making this up.”
Claire didn’t answer. Aaron started to cry.
“You’re joking,” Shannon persisted.
Claire didn’t answer, but reached out and ran a hand down the back of Shannon’s favorite pink jacket. Shannon shivered and pulled away and when she looked down her jacket was a deep blue.
Shannon stared at it and then looked at Claire. “You’re really an alien?”
“An alien-human hybrid.”
“Queen of some other planet—”
“—In another life.”
“Oh.” She buried her hands in Vincent’s fur. “And you have powers.”
Claire looked distant, almost ashamed. “Some.”
“Can you use your powers to make Jack less of an ass?”
2. Shannon Rutherford never hitched a ride.
“Hello, lovely. Buy you a drink?”
Shannon looked up and blinked.
Okay, kinda cute. Not conspicuously so, though. Kinda drunk, too. But British accent, that was a plus. And he was offering to buy her a drink. That was a major plus. “Sure,” she said with her best charming smile. “A drink sounds excellent.”
He smiled widely. “Excellent,” he repeated, laughed, and sat down next to her. “Bartender, another, uh—”
“Skip and Go Naked.”
If possible, his smile widened. “Another Skip and Go Naked for the lovely lady here.”
She had to smile back at him, unnerved though she was. His smile was too broad for his face and she wondered if he was about to bite her neck. Then she had to laugh at herself. God, he was a Brit, not a vampire.
“I’m Ford Prefect, by the way,” he introduced himself. “In from England. Guildford, to be precise.”
“Shannon Rutherford.” She extended a hand and after a moment’s drunken pause, he shook it. “In from California. Los Angeles, to be precise.”
“So, Miss Rutherford, what brings you from Los Angeles to New York?”
“A dance internship, with Martha Graham.” She liked the way the words sounded on her tongue. Who cared that she had no money, no steady job, and had just been evicted from her apartment? She had an internship with the Martha Graham company. “What about you? What brings a Brit across the pond?”
The sudden seriousness on his face made her skin crawl for a second. “Research…I’m writing a book.”
The drinks blurred together and so did the time and then her watch said it was three in the morning and they were stumbling down the street together.
Shannon got down to the streetlamp before realizing Ford wasn’t with her anymore. She managed to turn around and found him standing by a store window, staring up at the sky with a pensive look.
“What are you doing?” she asked, a little putout.
“Looking for flying saucers,” Ford said solemnly.
“What kind?”
And then he seemed to break out of the trance and looked back at her. That grin flashed back on his face. “Green ones!” he whooped, and darted forward to kiss her.
Two years later Shannon sat cross-legged on a beach and stared at the stars.
She wondered if Ford had ever found his flying saucer.
Somehow, the idea didn’t seem so weird now.
3. Shannon Rutherford never solved a mystery.
“Mavala Nail Polish,” a voice said, making Shannon start, almost spilling the bottle. “Mav-91000. Salerno-70. $4.50, made in Switzerland, sold in a .17 ounce bottle.”
Shannon regarded the man suspiciously. “You know a lot about nail polish.”
He offered an apologetic smile. “Sorry. People tell me I tend to sound like an encyclopedia when I’m nervous.”
“Oh.”
“Why are you painting your nails the night after a plane crash?”
Coming so close on the heels of Boone’s snarking, she considered throwing the bottle at him. But she didn’t really want to waste a $4.50 bottle of Salerno.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he added, sitting down next to her. “I’m just trying to take my mind off of what happened.”
“Mmf.”
“John Doe,” he said, and reached out to shake her hand.
She held up the nail polish brush in response, and he backed off a bit.
“Shannon Rutherford,” she mumbled, and focused on touching up her left pinky toe. “What the hell kind of name is John Doe?”
“…It’s a long story.” He paused. “Of the Rutherford-Carlyles? Carlyle Weddings?”
She scowled. “My stepmother’s business.”
“Touchy subject?”
“I’d rather not talk about it. Is John Doe an alias?”
Another pause. “Not exactly.”
“What were you doing in Australia?”
“My assistant decided I needed a vacation. So she randomly bought me a plane ticket. Next thing I knew, I was in Sydney.”
Shannon snorted. “Sure.”
“You don’t believe me?” He sounded more amused than offended. He didn’t wait for an answer, but continued in exactly the same tone of voice, “We were at least a thousand miles off course when we crashed. Maybe more. The pilot had turned around. Broke airline regulations. Must’ve been something really weird going on. We probably lost radio contact. Turning around was the worst thing he could do. Any search party is going to be looking for us in all the wrong places. Without radio contact we can’t let them know where we are. If we manage to establish radio contact…” He stopped and glanced at her before continuing. “If we manage to establish radio contact, we can help them find us. But only inasmuch as we know where we are.” He started to draw in the dirt, circles and lines. “Here’s our original flight path. We were roughly here when we turned back—we could have crashed anywhere along this line. Given the weather, the vegetation, and the time of sunset, I’d place us roughly in this area.” He marked it with his finger. “But that’s still a pretty big section of ocean to search—”
Shannon had stopped looking at his diagram about two seconds after he started drawing it. She stared at him, nail polish forgotten. “Who the hell are you?”
He offered her a self-deprecating smile. “I’m the man who knows everything.” He looked away, his expression sad. “I don’t know.”
She pulled her jacket tighter around her.
“Don’t leave your nail polish open,” he said, starting to stand. “It’ll dry out. And who knows how long it’ll be before you can buy a new supply.”
Shannon didn’t move as John left, moving back away from the main bulk of survivors.
4. Shannon Rutherford never got drunk with a PI
“Look, sweetie,” Shannon said, pinning the girl down. “I don’t know what the hell business of yours you think this is, but I don’t appreciate being watched.”
“Look, sweetie,” the girl answered sweetly. “I’m just doing the job I’m paid for.”
“Who paid you?” Shannon narrowed her eyes.
She didn’t answer.
“It was Boone, wasn’t it? That asshole! I’m gonna kill him!”
“You might wanna think about killing your boyfriend, instead,” the girl said, and held up an envelope.
Shannon looked at her suspiciously, then yanked the envelope away and opened it. When she saw the pictures inside, she swore loudly, then looked back at the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Veronica Mars.”
“Veronica Mars. You drink, Veronica Mars? Because I need to get drunk.”
“So, Barbie…”
“Barbie?” Shannon echoed indignantly, and pulled the bottle away from Veronica.
“Barbie,” the other girl confirmed. “C’mon, look at you. You’re Malibu Barbie, head to toe.”
Shannon scowled. “Just because I’m tall, blonde, and pretty—”
“It’s not because you’re tall, blonde, and pretty, it’s because you’re Barbie. What’s with all the pink?”
“I like pink.”
“Well, you overdo it.” Veronica stole the bottle back and took a drink. “And your boyfriend’s an asshole.”
“I can’t believe he did that to me,” Shannon grumbled. “I’m gonna kill him, I swear…and then I’m gonna kill Boone! I can’t believe he hired a PI to follow me around!”
Veronica said nothing, but cocked an eyebrow and let her gaze drop to the pictures, her meaning conveyed in a kind of drunken sign language.
“That’s not the point. He doesn’t trust me. He thinks I’m some useless joke.” She wished she were drunker. “He thinks I’m some useless joke but he’s still in love with me. Did he tell you that?”
“Come again?” Veronica wrinkled her nose.
“He’s in love with me. It’s creepy. He’s supposed to be my brother, for God’s sake.”
“That’s…really…um, yeah, awkward.”
“Told you.” Shannon sat back and huffed a sigh. “God, I gotta get out of here. I gotta get away from him. I’m gonna leave. Where should I go?”
Veronica shrugged, then said, “I hear Australia is nice this time of year.”
5. Shannon Rutherford never slid out.
“Do you see him?” Shannon demanded, forcing herself to breathe.
Sayid looked shell-shocked but nodded.
She turned back to look at Walt again, dripping wet and incongruous with his surroundings. The small boy held up a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”
“Walt!” she called. “Walt!”
“Shhh,” he repeated, then turned and vanished into the underbrush.
“Walt!” Shannon screamed, and gave chase. Damn it, no! She was not going to lose this kid! “WALT!”
She couldn’t see him anymore, but she knew he was there, somewhere up ahead of her.
And then the jungle was illuminated with an eerie blue light.
“Shannon!” Sayid called from somewhere behind her.
She turned, trying to figure out where the light was coming from, and saw a hole in the sky.
And then she heard a gunshot.
And then she was on the ground, and there was someone on top of her.
“Remmy!” an unfamiliar female voice cried.
“…the hell just happened?” a male voice demanded, and that one was familiar. Michael?
Shannon struggled to free herself. The eerie light vanished, and then someone was pulling the guy off of her.
“What’s going on?” Sayid.
“Shannon?” Jin.
“Someone want to explain to me—?” A second unfamiliar female voice.
“Remmy, are you all right?” An unfamiliar male voice.
Shannon blinked rain out of her eyes and pulled herself laboriously to her feet.
Sayid grabbed her, checking her over for injuries. She pushed him away and looked around.
No Walt.
But Michael and Jin, standing with a group of strangers. A Hispanic woman seemed to be in the lead, a gun out and braced. There was a middle-aged man and a ragged blonde woman with them.
And then a second group of strangers. A tall African-American man, the one who’d knocked her to the ground. He was bleeding for a gunshot wound to the side. A skinny guy in his twenties. A girl about Shannon’s own age, kind of mousy. And a large, older man who reminded Shannon vaguely of Arzt.
“I’m okay, Q-Ball,” the black man (Remmy?) said, shrugging off the skinny guy. “It’s just a graze. How long do we have?”
The skinny guy checked something that looked like a fancy remote control. “Looks like this is going to be Brief Stopover World.” He flashed a grin, held the control out, and started counting. “We slide in five, four, three—”
“Walt!” Shannon screamed in surprise when she saw him suddenly, walking out between the groups as if nothing was wrong.
“—two, one!”
The eerie blue light sprang into being again.
Without thinking, Shannon dove for Walt—to catch? to hold him in place? to hug him in relief? she wasn’t sure what she intended—and fell after him, into the hole in the sky.
